Jesse Bullington - The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

The snow had stopped and the sun had risen. Time passed in silence, Hegel gawking at Nicolette. During her tale she had eaten bowl after bowl of a muddy substance from a bucket beside her chair, but things other than her apparent taste for clay bothered the Grossbart. He shakily stood and cast his bottle into the fire, where it exploded. Drawing his sword, he yelled for his brother.

“On your feet, Manfried!” Hegel kept the blade between himself and the witch.

She clucked softly, not stirring from her chair. Manfried blearily pushed his back against the rear wall and rose halfway to his feet. Perplexed, he looked from Hegel to the seated geriatric. Christ, was she old.

“Calm, calm,” she murmured.

“Calm? You goddamned witch, I’ll have your head!” Hegel’s vision blurred, from fatigue or rage or drink, he could not be sure.

“Witch?” Manfried tried to stand but slid back down the wall. “Is it a witch, brother?”

“You knew what I was when you let me touch up you and your brother,” she said patiently.

“That true?” Manfried shot his brother a withering stare.

“Stay the Hell back!” Hegel moved between Nicolette and Manfried. He intended to hack off her head with a single swipe but was hesitant to approach her. Clearly she possessed dangerous powers.

“Keep your word, Grossbart,” she said, eyes flashing even without a blazing fire to reflect in them.

“She summon up that manticore on us?” Manfried’s head swam, and his weapons were nowhere to be found.

“Damn it all!” Hegel could not stop shouting. “Wasn’t no damn manticore, it’s a damn garou, just like I told you!”

“That’s French for wolf,” Nicolette offered. “Don’t think it really applies to Magnus, save metaphorical-like.”

“Shut it!” Hegel’s temples pounded. “Just be quiet!”

All three were silent. Manfried managed to edge up the wall to his feet, knees wobbling. Nicolette remained seated, staring at Hegel, who stumbled back, gripping his brother’s shoulder.

“What’s happened?” Manfried hissed in their tongue of two.

“Witch,” Hegel hissed back in kind.

“I managed that, what the Hell we doin in its house?”

“You was ill, I dragged you here. She healed you up.”

“Don’t mean to second-guess, but that sounds awful honest.” Manfried peered around Hegel for a better look.

“I paid.” Hegel shuddered. “Nuthin honest bout it.”

Nicolette had watched them intently during their discourse, head tilted like a curious pet. Now she smiled and leaned back in her chair. It had taken her a moment, but she had it.

“So she’s a witch, what you waitin for? Get’er quick fore we’s hexed!” Manfried shook his head in an effort to rattle out the sleep-mist.

“What are you waiting for, Hegel?” she asked in the same unique cant.

Both stared in shock, their code never before cracked.

“Maybe, Manfried, your brother is a man of his word?” Her smile widened.

“Dunno what word my brother gave, but any words we give’s ours to take back when we want, and don’t apply to heretics and witches no-way,” Manfried fired back, dropping any pretenses at secrecy. “Stab her, Hegel!”

Hegel took a step forward despite the ringing in his ears and the chills lancing through every other part of his body that cautioned against such an act.

“You break your word, Hegel, and I break mine.” She leaned forward in her chair.

Hegel paused, like a child working up the nerve to plunge into frigid water. Manfried held his breath, not understanding his brother’s hesitation. Perhaps he had already fallen under some charm.

“Why’d you heal us, if that thing out there’s your husband?” Hegel asked.

“Husband!?” Manfried slid back to the floor.

“Everything that happens to me or him is Her Will,” she said softly.

“Very enlightened,” Manfried croaked from the floor. “Least she respects the Virgin proper.”

Nicolette’s laughter hurt their ears. “Hekate’s Will, Grossbarts. The only lady of true quality.”

“Heresy,” Manfried groaned, the stress taxing his consciousness. “Quick, brother, quick!”

“Hekate?” The name struck Hegel as familiar.

“I’d heard Her Name whispered in my youth, in my dreams. I learned Her Ways mostly myself, but twenty years ago a traveler came to our house, a traveler even Magnus feared. He taught me what I didn’t intuit, which I assure you can and does fill volumes.” She had the same pleasant tone as when she told her earlier tale, nostalgia bringing a joyous glaze to her eyes.

“The Devil,” Manfried managed, lights bursting in his vision. “She met with the Devil!” He passed out again.

Hegel could not move, and while he would later attribute it to some spell, in truth he was too frightened to do anything but gawp at her.

“Not the Devil,” she sighed. “Or even a devil. A man of letters, a scholar of sorts. He spent a winter with us. I knew how to farm a bit, and Magnus hunted, naturally, but times are always lean when one’s appetite is so pronounced. In addition to the unusual seeds from the East, he showed me how to make my own food, as well as auger and curse and all the other goodness the Church warns against.”

“We.” Hegel swallowed. “We should be-”

“You leave when I say. I lied. I healed you not for Her Will but my own. You will die eventually, Grossbarts, and it will be hideous.”

Manfried caught that much, breaking back into consciousness and conversation as though his participation in both had been unfailing. “Yeah, everyone dies, witch, and then we’s gonna ascend. Might take us a while, but there’ll be no escapin your fate. You’s gonna be burnin for all time, long after we’s paid any penance we owe.”

“Neither here nor there, I certainly don’t intend to debate theology with two such learned and pious Marionites as yourselves. If I was to slay you now, no matter how painful or drawn out, you fools would cling to your faith, and cheat me of my reward.”

“Damn right we would,” Manfried snorted, trying to keep the lights at bay.

“Take that sack down, Hegel,” she said wearily, motioning to a high shelf.

He obeyed, telling himself his action was born only of curiosity. It felt heavy and lumpy, full of gravel. He held it out to her, the sword quaking in his other hand.

Shaking her head, she squinted at him. “Look inside.”

Unknotting the top, Hegel peered in. His brow knitted, and he looked closer. Manfried laboriously got back up and also had a gander.

“What’s this?” Hegel whispered, paler than milk.

“Teeth?” Manfried pulled out a handful.

“My children’s.” She sighed.

Manfried hurled the teeth away, wiping his hand on his shirt. “Cut’er!” he yelled but fell on his brother, who dropped the bag and supported him.

“Lean times.” Her eyes might have been misty, the room too dim for the Brothers to be sure. “Early spring sowing, to make sure they arrived before the snow. Then I’d have milk to last us through the winter, and some meat as well.”

Hegel’s sword swayed in his fingertips, its tip brushing the teeth on the floor. Manfried dug his thumb into his brother’s shoulder, using all his strength to stay upright. Nicolette cracked her knuckles and yawned.

“First few litters kept us well, but hard times more oft get worse before they’re better. After the first couple broods I stopped producing regular, and it’s a wonder we survived those years until he arrived. He taught me, yes, bake the bread far faster with a bit of effort, and they grow and plumpen far faster as well. The taste is one to be savored, surely, and I’d not begrudge Magnus anything, and yet… pure instinct, I suppose. Mothers want babes, all there is to it. To raise, I mean, not that . So if Magnus had caught you proper we’d have et real well this winter, but now I can have what he denied me through no fault of his own.”